The present invention relates to providing upholstery protection to seats, and more particularly, to a temporary storable seat cover that utilizes a spring roller mechanism for convenient storage in a discrete housing that lends itself to aftermarket use.
Automotive seats are used to transport a wide variety of items including humans, pets, household items, groceries, etc. from one place to another. In doing so, these items inevitably carry a variety of contaminants in solid, liquid and microbiological form which can be transferred from the transported person or item to the surface of the seat. This contamination contributes to a variety of unwanted side effects which include odor, upholstery discoloration, stains, dampness and bacterial contamination. These side effects can lead to decreased car value, increased propensity for colds, and embarrassment for the car owner if significant contamination occurs over time. Because automotive seats can be expensive and make up a highly visible component of the overall vehicle, automobile owners have a vested interest in preserving the natural aesthetic beauty of the original seat. Most owners will tend to avoid covering the surface on a permanent basis due to a preference towards the aesthetic appeal of the original upholstery.
As an example of the need to provide a temporary seat cover, people involved in heavy exercise are frequently faced with the need to enter their car with perspiration soaked clothing, thus contaminating the surface of the seat with high doses of moisture from sweat which can lead to bacteria build up, odor and even staining of the upholstery over a prolonged period of time. Some people attempt to partially protect the upholstery surface with a clean or used towel which tends to cover only part of the surface, while others simply allow their sweat to be absorbed into the exposed upholstery. Use of a towel can be cumbersome to apply since towels do not carry an anchoring mechanism, and may be inconvenient and not practical due to the difficulty in storing a towel in an aesthetically appealing manner within the limited space of an automobile interior.
Also, following visits to the beach, individuals or families frequently find themselves returning to their vehicles with wet clothing and sand filled towels. These vehicle owners must face the challenge of driving and transporting passengers without soaking the seats or soiling them with sand. Many times, there are attempts to use recently used beach towels for protection, however these may be soiled or wet themselves in many cases, causing similar levels of contamination. Frequently, vehicle owners have no alternative but to allow their valuable upholstery to become soaked with moisture and sand.
There are a number of professions which cause a person to arrive at work in clean clothing and return from work with soiled apparel. Mechanics, farmers, professional athletes, construction workers and some blue collar professions are prone to this. These individuals can carry a wide range of grease, dirt and other contaminants which can leave a visible stain on their vehicle upholstery. Without using a temporary means of protection, the owner will continually leave increased levels of stains to the vehicle.
In hot weather climates, vehicle owners frequently must temporarily leave their vehicles in direct sunlight while accomplishing routine errands. After a prolonged period of time, the interior of the vehicle can become extremely hot to the point of discomfort. One of the hottest surfaces, particularly in dark interior vehicles, is the seat. Prolonged exposure to intense heat can cause damage to upholstery. Even worse, extreme heat levels can cause a passenger to get burned by the heated upholstery, particularly if wearing shorts that expose the skin to direct contact with the scorching fabric. Temporarily covering a dark seat with a light heat defracting fabric will allow a vehicle owner to remove the protective covering upon return to the vehicle and diminish the heat level that comes in contact with the driver or passenger.
Pet owners who bring their pet along on periodic trips will tend to accumulate pet hair on upholstery over time which will have the propensity to get re-transferred onto a human passenger""s clothing in the future. Pet odors also can get trapped within the upholstery causing unwanted odors for passengers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,320,922 to Meritis proposes the use of the headrest as the storage mechanism for the seat cover. This concept limits the amount of fabric available for use to the width of the headrest, which is usually too narrow of a surface area to provide adequate protection to the exposed area of the seat. U.S. Pat. No. 4,600,238 to Goodford, U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,592 to Busso et al., and Meritis disclose factory installing the seat cover system. Although OEM applications offer some validity, they do not offer help to current car owners who may be in need of an after-market solution. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether vehicle manufacturers will be willing or able to apply similar OEM concepts across the wide breadth of available vehicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,985,222 to Menhall, U.S. Pat. No. 4,118,066 to Ricke and U.S. Pat. No. 2,804,914 to Butcko et al. suggest installation of an apparatus under the seat of a vehicle. Since automotive seat configurations vary so widely from manufacturer to manufacturer, it is unlikely that a single sized and shaped unit that is securely attached to a vehicles seat can be able to fit under the seat of a wide range of vehicles. Also, it is likely that installation under the seat would be either highly visible or interfere with the OEM mechanism for seat adjustment. Therefore, these temporary surface protection devices used as an aftermarket option, do not allow for universal fitting across a wide breadth of vehicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,376 to Keiswetter discloses utilization of a temporary cover that is intended for limited use and does not allow the user to re-store the cover temporarily for re-use. However, many vehicle owners will not find it convenient to carry and dispose of used covers on a frequent basis. For vehicle owners who need to apply temporary protection with great frequency, such as users with a regular exercise routine, they would find the need to discard a temporary seat cover cumbersome and may choose to abandon its usage.
U.S. Pat. No 6,089,659 to Toyota has suggested the use of the headrest to secure the seat cover, but has not offered a temporary solution with discrete storability during non-use. Toyota discloses that the seat cover be attached to mounting bars of a headrest. However, mounting bars do not exist in all vehicles. U.S. Pat. No. 5,806,925 to Hanley has also suggested the use of the head rest as an anchor but has not provided the vehicle owner with a quick, clean method of collecting the material for temporary storage. Instead, a user is required to manually collect the protective seat cover for storage.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,828 to Asfaw discloses a seat cover having a housing for containing a retractable roll of material. However, the housing is positioned between a back seat cushion and a bottom seat cushion and the fabric only extends to cover the bottom seat cushion.
Thus, there is an unmet need in the marketplace to provide a satisfactory form of short term protection to automotive seat upholstery.
A retractable seat cover for providing temporary protection to a seat having a top portion includes a housing having a first end and a second end. A retraction mechanism is rotatably coupled to the first and second ends of the housing. A piece of fabric has a top portion and a lower portion, the lower portion being coupled to the retraction mechanism, and the top portion extendable from the housing as the fabric is unrolled during use of the retractable seat cover and retractable when the retraction mechanism is activated to roll the fabric back within the housing during non-use of the retractable seat cover. A strap has a first end and a second end, which are coupled to the top portion of the fabric. The strap is positionable around the headrest or top portion of the seat for anchoring the retractable seat cover to the seat.
A principal object of the present invention is to provide a protective barrier to automobile upholstery which can be utilized on a short term as needed basis, allowing the user to preserve the value and aesthetic appeal of their automobile. The invention allows a user to enjoy the natural beauty of original upholstery material during periods when limited contamination potential exists, while at the same time providing easily accessible short term protection during periods of high exposure to contaminants such as sweat, dirt, bacteria and other pollutants.
It is a further object to make the invention as compact and concealable as possible in order to maximize its accessibility when needed, while at the same time avoiding detracting from the aesthetic appeal of the automotive seat and vehicle. In order to further encourage a compact configuration, the retractable seat protection cover incorporates the use of a spring roller mechanism which allows protective fabric to be maintained and made available utilizing minimal space. Use of a spring roller mechanism further allows enhanced ease of use since the spring serves to assist the user in high speed organized storage when removing the protective fabric cover when no longer needed.
The invention utilizes a housing whose object is to provide efficient storage capability to the invention which further encourages compactness and concealability. Aesthetic appeal and discrete storage is further enhanced by making the housing available in multiple colors which closely fit the colors of the upholstery to be protected and/or interior of the vehicle, thus creating a camouflage effect. The housing may be a relatively narrow cylindrical shape or an open structure which provides ergonomic benefits and promotes ease of use by acting as a handle that conveniently fits in the palm of most users hands during the application of protective fabric. The housing is compact enough to fit comfortably under the seat of most vehicles in either a parallel, angled, or perpendicular direction. The housing is intended to be conveniently stored and secured if necessary. The housing can also utilize commonly available fasteners such as fibrous adhesive patches marketed under the tradename Velcro or hooks to secure the housing in place within the vehicle to add discreteness and/or convenience of storage.
The invention allows for universal fitting on substantially all makes and models of automobiles by utilizing an elastic band which easily stretches to wrap around the top of an automobile seat to conform to its size and shape. The top of an automobile seat has been found to be the one common denominator amongst all vehicles where sufficient space exists to allow satisfactory anchoring of fabric across a wide breadth of automobile configurations. The thickness of the elastic is minimized in order to decrease the visibility of the elastic when used to anchor the protective fabric to the upholstery. This contrasts other inventions which have intended to utilize the entire surface area of the head rest as an anchor mechanism. Head rest contamination has been found to be virtually non-existent since limited contact actually occurs with the head rest during normal transportation of people or objects. Thus, it is considered unnecessary and less discrete to utilize the entire surface area of the head rest as an anchoring mechanism. Use of a thin elastic band provides sufficient anchoring, without the use of unneeded fabric which may tend to make the seat cover more noticeable and less economical.
A roll of fabric is utilized as the protective barrier between a potentially contaminating body and the upholstery. The fabric offers sufficient surface area to adequately cover the seat surface so as to provide adequate protection to the upholstery. Although both woven and non-woven materials may be utilized in the invention, there is a tendency towards usage of non-woven fabrics to provide increased economic benefits due to manufacturing efficiencies that exist with non woven fabric. Non woven fabric also offer wider variety of thin layers which further promote compactness in the invention.
The fabric is intended to possess various properties which enhance the protective capabilities of the invention. Anti-bacterial technology can be utilized in and/or on the fabric to reduce the occurrence of odors and stains that may develop from prolonged bacterial contamination and promote increased sanitary protection. Anti-bacterial technology may be utilized by impregnating fabric with agents that discourage the proliferation of bacteria and other harmful organisms. The anti-bacterial protection also increases the usable shelf life of the fabric by inhibiting the growth of bacteria on the protective fabric itself.
Although numerous protective fabrics are available, there should be a tendency towards utilizing water repellent fabric on the top side of the fabric, furthest away from the upholstery surface. The repellent properties encourage moisture to remain on the surface of the fabric so that it can become absorbed by the carrying body. Upon leaving the vehicle, the moisture would remain on the carrying body and vacate the vehicle, thus maximizing the removal of moisture, dirt and other contaminants, reducing the amount of contamination maintained on the fabric and thereby prolonging its usable life.
In order to create a true barrier for upholstery the invention utilizes a thin waterproof coating on the side of the fabric which is in direct contact with the upholstery. This extra layer of protection serves as the final barrier to prevent moisture from becoming trapped in the upholstery, thereby eliminating the chance of odors and stains. The layer having waterproof material may also contain anti-slip properties to avoid having the fabric move when a person enters or exits the vehicle.
In addition to sanitary protection, the fabric also provides solar protection which is needed from time to time when automobiles are left exposed to direct sunlight for a prolonged period of time. Removal of the protective fabric will tend to maintain a cooler surface on the original upholstery surface than would otherwise exist if left uncovered and fully exposed. Ultraviolet protection is also possible, if fabric is used that provides UV protection that diminishes potential upholstery damage that can be caused by harmful UV rays. The degrees of solar protection will vary depending on the reflective and solar dissipating qualities of the fabric used.
The fabric is intended to be economical enough to be semi-disposable, allowing for multiple uses over a limited period of time. This avoids the need to constantly dispose of the fabric after every use, providing sufficient usage time to make the invention more practical. At the same time, after extended periods and uses where the protective fabric may have collected sufficient contamination to warrant its disposal, a user can conveniently and economically replace the fabric.
If a roll is used, the roll is intended to be able to fit snugly around the spring roller in a manner that allows movement and control of the roller and its fabric to be controlled by the action of the spring roller. There are a wide array of methodologies available to secure the roll of fabric to the spring roller and include but are not limited to the use of multiple holes or notches engraved in the core of the roll which is prepared to receive the male counterpart which would be delivered from the edge of the spring roller mechanism. The purpose being to provide secure temporary adherence between the roll and spring roller so that smooth rotation of both components will tend to operate as one unit in a fluid rotational motion. In alternative embodiments, the fabric is discarded along with the core body and the retraction mechanism, allowing it to be replaced with a new core and retraction mechanism, making the fabric disposable.